Tubular Bells: История альбома Майка Олдфилда

1973 album by Mike Oldfield
the Mike Oldfield album

Tubular Bells is the debut studio album by the British musician Mike Oldfield, released on 25 May 1973 as the first album on Virgin Records. It comprises two mostly instrumental tracks. Oldfield, who was 19 years old when it was recorded, played almost all the instruments. Tubular Bells initially sold slowly, but gained worldwide attention in December 1973 when its opening theme was used for the soundtrack to the horror film The Exorcist. This led to a surge in sales which increased Oldfield's profile and played an important part in the growth of the Virgin Group. It stayed in the top ten of the UK Albums Chart for one year from March 1974, during which it reached number one for one week. It reached number three on the US Billboard 200, and number one in Canada and Australia. It has sold more than 2.7 million copies in the UK and an estimated 15 million copies worldwide. An orchestral version produced by David Bedford was released in 1975 as The Orchestral Tubular Bells. It was followed by the albums Tubular Bells II (1992), Tubular Bells III (1998), The Millennium Bell (1999), and a re recorded version, Tubular Bells 2003, for its 30th anniversary. A remastered edition was released in 2009. Its contribution to British music was recognised when Oldfield played extracts during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London. In 2010, Tubular Bells was one of ten classic album covers from British artists commemorated on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail.

Oldfield learned to play the guitar at an early age, and as a teenager he became the bass player for the Whole World, a band put together by Kevin Ayers, formerly of Soft Machine. The Whole World recorded their album Shooting at the Moon (1970) at Abbey Road Studios over several months in 1970, when Oldfield was 17. When the group did not have a recording session booked in the morning, Oldfield would arrive early and experiment with the different instruments, including pianos, harpischords, a Mellotron and various orchestral percussion instruments, and learned to play each of them. The Whole World broke up in mid 1971 and Ayers lent Oldfield a two track Bang & Olufsen Beocord ¼" tape recorder. Oldfield blocked off the erase head of the tape machine, which allowed him to record onto one track, bounce the recording onto the second, and record a new instrument onto the first track, thus overdubbing his playing one instrument at a time, and effectively making multitrack recordings. while trying to find a record label interested in his demos. Oldfield approached labels including EMI and CBS, but each rejected him, believing the piece was unmarketable without vocals. In total, 274 overdubs were made and an estimated two thousand "punch ins", although Newman said "it was really only 70 or 80" in total. Despite various guitars being listed on the album sleeve, such as "speed guitars", "fuzz guitars" and "guitars sounding like bagpipes", the only electric guitar used on the album was a 1966 blonde Fender Telecaster which used to belong to Marc Bolan and to which Oldfield had added an extra Bill Lawrence pickup. The guitars were recorded via direct injection into the mixing desk.) was given to David Bedford at a party, who then subsequently gave it to Oldfield. Tom Newman criticised the wooden cased unit in a 2001 interview with Q magazine, noting that it rarely gave the same result twice. According to the engineer Phil Newell, the bass guitar used on the album was one of his Fender Telecaster Basses.

Oldfield recorded side one, known as "Opus One" at the time, during his one allotted week at the Manor in November 1972. Oldfield had "Part Two" mapped out and sequenced by the time he came to record it. The "caveman" section is the only part of Tubular Bells that features a drum kit, which is played by Steve Broughton of the Edgar Broughton Band. The section begins with a backing track of bass and drums, with Oldfield overdubbing all other instruments. The shouting vocals developed near the end of the recording, when he had practically finished recording the instruments for the section but felt it needed something else. Heyworth recalled that Branson was getting impatient and pressured Oldfield to deliver the album, and to include vocals on one of the tracks so he could release it as a single. Angered by Branson's suggestion, Oldfield returned to the Manor where he drank half a bottle of Jameson's whiskey from the studio's cellar and demanded that the engineer take him to the studio where, intoxicated, he "screamed his brains out for 10 minutes" into a microphone. The incident left Oldfield so hoarse that he was unable to speak for two weeks. Key was invited to present his portfolio, and one of his designs depicted a boiled egg with blood dripping from it, which Branson liked and wanted to use for the cover because he wanted to call the album Breakfast in Bed. Oldfield hated both the image and the title and rejected them. The "bent bell" has become the image most associated with Oldfield, appearing on the cover of every Tubular Bells sequel album. It is also the logo of his personal music company, Oldfield Music Ltd. The cover of Tubular Bells was among ten images chosen by Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps, issued in January 2010.

In January 1973, Branson visited the MIDEM music conference in Cannes, France and pitched side one to various music companies with the hope of securing a record deal. One American executive offered $20,000 if vocals were added to the music. The unsuccessful visit led Branson and Draper to consider putting the album out through mail order, before they chose to form their own label, Virgin Records, and use Tubular Bells as their first release. Early sales were slow, and it was not until July 1973 that the album appeared in the UK Albums Chart, reaching an initial peak of number seven. The situation changed following the release of The Exorcist in December 1973, Oldfield later attributing the music's successful use on the soundtrack to its unusual 15/8 opening time signature. From February 1974 to May 1975, Tubular Bells dropped out of the UK top 10 for only four weeks. Sixteen months after its release, it went to number one for the week ending 5October 1974, having spent 10 consecutive weeks in second place behind Band on the Run (1973) by Wings, and Oldfield's second album Hergest Ridge (1974). Prior to the 2020s, the album had re entered the charts in every decade since its release, most recently appearing in the week ending 22 March 2018 (its 287th week in total). On 22 April 2007, British newspaper The Mail on Sunday gave away 2.25 million free copies of Tubular Bells to its readers in a card packet displaying the artwork. The release was organised by EMI, who had bought out Virgin Records, and the newspaper claimed that its promotion increased sales of the album by 30%. Oldfield was unhappy about the deal, as he had not been consulted about it and felt it devalued the work. Tubular Bells has sold more than 2.63 million copies in the UK, and an estimated 15 million worldwide.

The first single released from the album was created by the original US distributor, Atlantic Records. The single was an edit of the first three sections from Part One and was not authorised by Oldfield. The single was released in February 1974 in the United States and Canada only, where it peaked at number seven on the U. S. Billboard Hot 100 chart on 11 May 1974, making Oldfield a one hit wonder on the US charts. The track also reached number 15 on the Adult Contemporary chart. In Canada, the single was released as "Tubular Bells (Theme from Exorcist)", peaking at number three on the RPM Top Singles chart on 18 May 1974, and was placed at number 103 in the top 200 singles of the year. "Mike Oldfield's Single (Theme from Tubular Bells)" was the first 7 inch single released by Oldfield in the UK, in June 1974, peaking at number 31. The A side was a re recording of Part Two's "bagpipe guitars" section, arranged in a more pastoral version with acoustic guitars and featuring the oboe (played by Lindsay Cooper) as the lead instrument, with "Froggy Went A Courting" as the B side.

YearLabelFormatNotes1973VirginVinylStandard stereo black vinyl with the catalogue number V2001. Reissued in 2009 as part of the Back to Black series.1973VirginVinylStandard stereo black vinyl (distributed by Atlantic Records) with the catalogue number VR 13 105. Original US version.1975VirginVinylQuadraphonic version in black vinyl with the catalogue number QV 2001 and number QD13 105 in the US. The first 40,000 copies are not true quadraphonic sound, but doctored versions of the stereo mix. This was corrected on subsequent copies, but there is no indication on the record that this substitution was made.1978VirginVinylCatalogue number VP 2001. A picture disc version showing the bent bell on a skyscape. This is a stereo remix of the quadraphonic version, the only difference being in the sound of the "reed and pipe organ" during the finale of Part One. This version was included on the Boxed compilation.1981VirginVinylRe mastered by Ray Janos at CBS Recording Studios on the CBS DisComputer System.1983VirginVinyl, CD, cassetteTenth anniversary limited edition released at the same time as Oldfield's album Crises (1983). First CD issue of the album with a catalogue number of CDV2001.2000VirginCD, HDCDRemastered by Simon Heyworth.2001VirginSACDIncludes the 2000 remaster and uses the quadraphonic mix from Boxed for the multi channel part. This release contains liner notes by David Laing and the SACD release notes were by Phil Newell and Heyworth. Some copies were labelled as the "25th Anniversary Edition".

In 2008, Oldfield's original 35 year deal with Virgin Records ended and the rights to the album returned to him. After signing to Mercury Records in 2005, Oldfield's albums originally released on Virgin were transferred to Mercury and re released, starting the following year. Tubular Bells was reissued in June 2009 in a number of formats, including vinyl, 2 CD and DVD, and includes a new stereo mix by Oldfield in March 2009 from his home studio in Nassau, Bahamas. The Deluxe Edition contains a 5.1 surround sound mix and the Ultimate Edition contains an accompanying book and memorabilia. The release was promoted by a series of bell ringing events at 6 p. m. on 6 June 2009, a reference to the Number of the Beast. One of the events was held at the British Music Experience at The O2, featuring the 29 piece Handbell Ringers of Great Britain and a performance by The Orb named "Orbular Bells". There were also bell ringing workshops and competitions at the Experience. The album reached number 11 in the UK.

A 50th anniversary edition of the album was released on 26 May 2023 on CD and half speed mastered 2LP. It features a new master of the original album along with additional previously released tracks including the 2012 Olympics recording, the Tubular Beats recording with York, "Tubular X" (from The X Files), and one new 8 minute track, the "Introduction to Tubular Bells 4" which was recorded by Oldfield as a demo in 2017. Oldfield's record label has indicated that after recording the 8 minute demo he decided not to go forward with the Tubular Bells 4 project, and that this "may well be the last piece ever to be recorded by Oldfield". A Blu ray audio version was also being produced which includes new Dolby Atmos and Stereo mixes by David Kosten as well as Mike Oldfield's 2009 5.1 mix and the 1975 Quadrophonic mix by Phil Newell.

The introduction to Part One was chosen to feature in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist. According to the British film critic Mark Kermode, the decision to include the music was the result of chance – the director, William Friedkin, had decided to discard the original score by Lalo Schifrin and was looking for music to replace it. Friedkin was visiting the offices of Ahmet Ertegun, the president of Atlantic Records (which distributed Tubular Bells in the US), and picking up a white label of the album from the selection of records in Ertegun's office, he put it on the record player and instantly decided that the music would be perfect for the film. Although the introduction only features briefly in two scenes, it has become the track most commonly associated with the film. Oldfield said he did not want to see the film because he believed he would find it too frightening.

Richard Branson recognised the significance of Tubular Bells to the Virgin Group's success, who named one of his first Virgin America aircraft, an Airbus A319 112, N527VA Tubular Belle. Prior to this Virgin Atlantic had named a Boeing 747 4Q8, G VHOT Tubular Belle, in 1994. In the United Kingdom Virgin Money signalled its entry into the banking sector in January 2012 with a television advertisement titled '40 Years of Better'. The advertisement opened with an image of a record orbiting the Earth accompanied by the music of the introduction to Tubular Bells, signifying the beginnings of Virgin, and ended with a shot of the same record framed and hanging on the wall of the new bank. Two months later a Virgin Media TV advertisement starring Branson and actor David Tennant also featured the record, where a younger version of Branson is seen holding a copy of Tubular Bells under his arm upon exiting a time machine. However, the advert was withdrawn shortly afterwards following objections from the BBC that it was being used to endorse a rival TV service (in the advert Tennant is shown searching on Virgin's TiVo on demand service for episodes of Doctor Who, a BBC series in which he formerly played the titular character). In May 2021, Virgin Orbit, the commercial rocket launch provider subsidiary of the Virgin Group, announced the first operational mission of their LauncherOne air launched rocket would be named after the first track of the album, Tubular Bells, Part One.

The use of the opening theme in the 1973 film The Exorcist gained the record considerable publicity and introduced the work to a broader audience. Along with a number of other Oldfield pieces the theme was used in the 1979 NASA movie The Space Movie. It has gained cultural significance as a "haunting theme", partly due to the association with The Exorcist, and has been sampled by many other artists. In television it was used in several episodes of the Dutch children's series Bassie en Adriaan, and an episode ("Ghosts") of the BBC series My Family. It was used in a television advertisement for the Volkswagen Golf Diesel in 2002 and in various films.

With the aid of the software house CRL and distributor Nu Wave, Mike Oldfield released an interactive Commodore 64 version of the album in 1986, which used the computer's SID sound chip to play back a simplified re arrangement of the album, accompanied by some simple 2D visual effects. The "interactivity" offered by the album/program was limited to controlling the speed and quantity of the visual effects, tuning the sound's volume and filtering, and skipping to any part of the album. In 2004, Oldfield launched a virtual reality project called Maestro which contains music from Tubular Bells 2003. The original title of the game was The Tube World. This was the second game which was released under the MusicVR banner, the first being Tres Lunas. MusicVR set out to be a real time virtual reality experience combining imagery and music, as a non violent and essentially a non goal driven game. In 2012 Universal and Indaba Music created a Tubular Bells remix contest, where users could download original stem recordings to create their own pieces and the winner of the $1,000 prize was judged by Oldfield.

American artist Tori Amos has frequently used the opening Tubular Bells theme in her live shows. It began during the 1996 Dew Drop Inn Tour where she let "Father Lucifer" segue into Tubular Bells on the piano while singing words from Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy" as well as playing it on the harpsichord during songs "Love Song" (a Cure cover) and "Bells for Her" (from the album Under the Pink), usually while mixing in lyrics from a third song such as Björk's "Hyperballad" or "Blue Skies". It appeared again in 2005 as part of "Yes, Anastasia", and on the 2007 tour promoting her album American Doll Posse where it was performed with full band as an intro to "Devils and Gods". On the 2011 tour, promoting her album Night of Hunters it is being performed as the intro to and backing melody for "God." Tubular Bells for Two is a music theatre production created by two Australian multi instrumentalists, Aidan Roberts and Daniel Holdsworth, in 2009. The two musicians perform over twenty instruments to recreate the original album 'as faithfully as physically possible'. The show won a Sydney Fringe Award for Best Musical Moment in the 2010 Festival, and has been performed at festivals around Australia and the Pacific. The show made its European debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2012, where it won two awards. In 2013, Oldfield invited Branson to the opening of St. Andrew's International School of The Bahamas, where two of Oldfield's children were pupils. This was the occasion of the debut of Tubular Bells for Schools, a piano solo adaptation of Oldfield's work.